Valerie cocked her head to the side, not understanding my words. I loved the little sparkle of confusion in her eyes. So I left it there instead of elaborating.
She didn’t have to know about my little aching dilemma last night, the one between my legs.
I eventually released her hair. It felt as if I had pulled away from warmth and doused myself with cold water.
But it was time to go. Time for something else, instead of letting my obsession for this silent myshka take over my life, day and night.
I had to focus on something. Valentin Solonik. Yet here I was, little chit chat with his wife and stealing touches.
Standing up, I faced her. I had to leave, had to walk away, but I found myself standing in front of her, my legs not working.
Valerie stared up at me, her hazel eyes round and lost.
I finally remembered the reason why I was really here. My hand reached into my pocket, and I pulled out a little something.
Opening my fist, I showed her the small white and orange origami figure.
Her eyes widened, and then she looked up at me in surprise. “Take it. It’s yours,” I said.
I didn’t give her a chance to think. Instead, I took her clenched fist in other hand and forced her fingers open before I placed the origami into her palm.
Her mouth opened, as if she wanted to speak, but there was no sound, no words. A silent, beautiful swan.
Valerie scrambled for her paper and pen and quickly wrote down something for me.
“You made this? For me?”
I nodded. “Yes. I made it. For you.”
Because I couldn’t stop thinking of you, I whispered in my own head.
Last night, after leaving her bedroom, after leaving her behind to sleep, I went to my own bed, but sleep was so far away. It was a…hard night. Very hard.
I tried to take care of it, but even that didn’t help. There was no way to forget the way she tasted, the way she smelled, the way she moved.
So I ended up spending some of my time making the sweet Valerie something.
A little something that reminded me of her.
“What is it?”
I read the words and then looked at the origami in her hand. “It’s a swan.”
A paper swan. It was tiny but complicatedly beautiful.
Like her.
Just like Valerie.
“It reminds me of you. Elegant and sweet. Beautiful. Graceful. An unspoken poetry,” I confessed out loud.
Valerie watched my lips move, and she took in every word. The hazel pools softened and she blinked away, maybe hiding her tears. I saw the glassy look in her eyes.
Fuck.
A heavy weight settled on my lungs, and I fisted my hands at my sides.
“Do swans make dreams come true?”
I never took my eyes off her. Her silent words were an arrow to my heart and she wounded me, a cut so deep that I wasn’t sure it would heal.
“Maybe they do,” I whispered roughly.
I watched her hands as she wrote on the paper again. The pen made a scribbling sound, filling the silence of the room.
“What does this mean? You giving me this…?”
Valerie was confused, and she blinked up at me, looking for answers and searching for a piece of my soul.
Her question made me confused too. She was right. What did this mean? Why did I give this to her?
I didn’t have the fucking answers myself, so what could I say to her?
Cocking my head to the side, I thought of something to ease her uncertainty.
“Maybe a symbol of friendship?” I finally said.
That was true enough. Well, the partial truth.
My eyes watched as hope blossomed in her gaze. Her hazel eyes sparkled and her lips parted as she took a small breath. But then just as quickly as that hope bloomed, it shriveled away as she looked down at her lap.
Valerie looked at the paper swan, as if it were a betrayal, a lie…something forbidden.
“We can’t be friends,” she wrote on the paper.
“You are right. We can’t,” I replied before I could stop myself.
A small grin tugged at the corner of my mouth, and then I quickly wiped it away, not wanting to look like an asshole.
But I did speak the truth. Being friends was overrated and boring.
Valerie and I…we could never be just friends.
Because it would never be enough. I wanted more. Much more.
But Valerie didn’t understand, and she instead flinched at my words, misunderstanding the meaning behind my quick refusal.
She stared sadly at the origami before pushing it toward me.
No, silent myshka.
If only you knew…how much I wanted you.
Instead of taking it away, I folded her fingers over the paper swan again. I kept my hand wrapped around hers, and I kept the little thing safe in her fist.
It was hers.
The symbol of friendship and the start of something new.
“No. You can keep it. Who knows…maybe it will catch your nightmares and turn them into a beautiful dream.”